


I Tried to Wash You Away

by midoriverte



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: M/M, Self Loathing, depiction of scars/injury, discussion of self harm but it doesn't actually happen, this is not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 13:11:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8447209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midoriverte/pseuds/midoriverte
Summary: Hide was pretty sure these sleepless nights were going to kill him one day.





	

Hide was pretty sure these sleepless nights were going to kill him one day.

After a while he’d simply given up on sleeping, choosing instead to spend his nights surrounded by papers. Stolen CCG reports, maps of ghoul attacks, precious information on what Kaneki was doing.

Reminders that Kaneki had forgotten him. Reminders that Hide was still fighting for him.

He usually ended up falling asleep better when he was working. He couldn’t count the amount of times he had woken up, his body aching from sleeping on the floor.

It had been jarring, this morning, to wake up with a photo of Kaneki (or whoever he was now) in front of his face. For one moment he thought Kaneki was there with him.

Then reality hit him as he remembered where he was. Alone on a cold floor in a room devoid of any comfort or sign of personality. A room that was only filled with ways to get back to Kaneki.

It was, Hide thought, appropriate.

Maybe his brief moment of — he didn’t want to call it joy, but something close to being happy — was what made him so miserable the rest of the day. Something about his expression that day seemed to cause people to shy away from him instinctively as he went about his day.

It suited him just fine. He didn’t have any interest in them anyway.

Maybe that was just his problem. It was always Kaneki, it was only Kaneki, that he cared for. With everyone else he just played a role. He feigned interest in them.

Of course, he had never been himself around Kaneki either.

Maybe that was why he now felt so insubstantial. People avoiding him suited him just fine because he no longer had the energy to pretend to be a good person. At the slightest bit of scrutiny he would crumble and everyone would see him for what he was. Hollow and ugly.

The deepest, ugliest part of him almost didn’t want to see Kaneki again. He was sure that if he did, Kaneki would only be disgusted to see the real face of the person he once called a friend.

The envelope he obtained today contained photographs. He closed his door behind him and bolted it shut, taking his time to avoid looking at contents.

He already knew what it would be.  He’d kept his tabs on Kaneki and knew what he was doing now. He tried not to think about the look of pity on his informant's face as they handed over the envelope.

He shook out the contents. Photos of Kaneki at Re, smiling and surrounded by people. The scene was so like Anteiku that Hide almost could have mistaken them for old photographs if it weren’t for the fact that everyone looked ever so slightly older.

Hide traced the scar on his face absentmindedly as he looked at the photos. Once again, he was on the outside looking in as Kaneki smiled with newfound friends and allies.

It was nostalgic.

The scars that marred almost an entire side of his body seemed to ache again. It was probably just from how badly he had slept.

He remembered how badly it had hurt. Months of his life spent in agony. Months that he could barely remember.

He remembered that, when he had begun to feel better, he found an article online about the raid on Anteiku, it listed the names of the dead and missing. His name had somehow not made it in on the list.

He found it funny at the time, he wasn’t sure he did anymore.

He stuffed the photos back in the envelope. They didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know.

His scars really hurt him now. He knew it was all in his head, he knew he shouldn’t, but he went to look in the mirror.

Stripping his shirt off, he didn’t know if he expected the scars to appear inflamed. They looked as they always did, in some places red, in others deep pink and white. They were deep, deep gouges into his skin. On his face, his neck, his chest, his _arm_ , god, it was nothing but scar tissue.

He was filled with the sudden, laughable, impulse to wash them off. To scrub at them until they were bleeding and maybe they would heal and leave him looking whole again.

He took several deep breaths, calming himself. The sight of his scars had never filled him with such revulsion before. He used to think of his scars as proof of his love, his devotion, to Kaneki.

Now he thought they were just proof that he was a fool, who would forever chase someone who was not coming back for him.

Yet there was no part of him that was tempted, even for an instant, to stop watching over Kaneki. To stop hoping that maybe he could see him again.

He put his shirt back on and sat on his floor, pulling papers towards him and settling down for another sleepless night.

Hide had never claimed that he wasn’t a fool.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Another installment in my series of bitterness-fueled Hide oneshots.  
> Beta'd by sondeneige *kissy emoji*.


End file.
